Forbidden Love
by TheDauntlessWitch
Summary: A short story on Katniss's feelings for Gale through The Hunger Games to Catching Fire. (Katniss X Gale)


**This is a story that I wrote two years ago for an English assessment.**

**Katniss x Gale**

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><p><span><strong>The Forbidden Love<strong>

I knew this _boy _since I was twelve. Four years since I had made acquaintance with _him. _Four years of _him_ being my hunting partner. Four years of _him_ being my friend. My best friend. The one who knows me most.

I did see _him_ once before meeting _him _in the forest. It was at the justice building when I got the Medal Of Valor. I had gotten it because my father had died in a mining accident, for being the eldest of the family. Both of our fathers had died in the same mining accident.

I would always go to that magnificent woods and hunt for game to trade at The Hob or to Peacekeepers. My dad was the one who taught me to hunt, using the bow and arrow, how to swim at the lake, about nature. The only thing that I couldn't really cover was making the snares.

When I saw a perfectly made snare at the woods, with a rabbit entangled, my heart slightly jumped. When I examined it, the voice behind me frightened, making my whole body jump.

I turned to see a man. Or is it a boy? I don't know. _He _seems too handsome and looks too old to be called a boy.

Olive skin, black hair and grey eyes. Exactly the same features as me, but everyone who lives in the Seam all have the same looks. That is why my mother and sister stand out. Prim has blonde hair and blue eyes and so does my mom.

I can't remember _his_ first exact words to me, but _he_ had thought I has going to steal the rabbit.

I had told _him_ that I was just looking at the snare and then _he_ asked what my name was.

I had told _him_ in barely a whisper. ''Katniss.''

And it had made me laugh when _he_ thought it was ''Catnip'' I did correct _him_, but then after I was followed by a crazy lynx around the woods, hoping for some food, so _he_ was convinced that I was Catnip.

And so it had become my official name to _him_.

This boy would have no trouble finding a wife, _he_ is muscular and good-looking. I noticed how girls would follow _him_ at school, how they would whisper about _him. _

Four years later and we are still friends. There is nothing romantic between us, but there was something indescribable.

Sitting there in the woods was lovely, especially since it was with him. If it wasn't for the reaping that was going to happen this day would have been perfect.

Prim was frightened, because it was her first time and she has every right to be But of course it weren't to be her.

But I was wrong.

I was thankful that _he_ dragged Prim away when I had volunteered to take her place in the games. But she of course was mortified, screaming hysterically behind me, ''No, Katniss! No! You can't go!'' I hated what I had to do to her, telling her harshly to let go.

I could feel _him_ pulling her off my back. I turn and focus on _his_ grey eyes, yet I could still make out Prim thrashing her arms. ''Up you go, Catnip,'' a fighting voice that _he_ is trying to keep steady. He takes Prim to my mom.

Up on stage was dreadful. A escort, who is too bright and bubbly to be human. A drunken mentor, taunting the Capitol by shouting and pointing down the camera, falling off the stage. And being in danger of crying with cameras focused on me. The mentor is disgusting, but I am thankful. Haymitch will be keeping all of the cameras trained on him. Him plummeting off the stage and knocking himself unconscious will certainly entertain the Capitol.

That is what the games are all about. There just something about children fighting to the death that keeps them happy. It sickens me. Sickens everyone here in District Twelve.

Being in the district that I am, no one has volunteered in decades. When they televise the replays of the reapings tonight, I would surely be the highlight.

Now it was the boys turn, I don't even have time to wish for the _his _safety, because the pink escort, Effie zips back. With the slip and smoothes it out and reveals the name.

Peeta Mellark.

It could have been anyone, but fate decided that it had to be the bakers son this year. The young boy with the ashy blonde hair. The one who burnt the bread and took a rolling pin to the head in his mothers anger. The one who given the bread to me in a tough time. Tossing it through the rain without even looking at me.

He had two older brothers, but none of them volunteered. I prey that he didn't feel disappointed, after my performance of volunteering.

Why did it have to be Peeta? No, be thankful that it isn't him?

_Oh well, there will be twenty four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I have to._

After my mom and Prim visited me in custody, it was my friend Madge. I had made a promise to Prim that I would come back and then I made a promise to Madge that I would wear a pin that she had given to me, that I would wear it at the arena. Not an ordinary pin. It was gold, circular and had a small bird in mid-flight.

To many promises.

Then _he_ came. I don't hesitate to fall into _his_ arms when _he_ opens them. _He_ smells of wood. _His_ usual smell are apples or oranges.

_He_ tells me to make sure to get a bow. If I don't get one I have to make one.

''You know how to kill.''

''Not people.''

''How different can it be, really?'' I rarely hear harsh words come out of his mouth, so that sentence was somewhat shocking.

As the Peacekeepers came to take _him_ away I yell at him to make sure my family that they don't starve.

''I wont! You know that I wont! Katniss, remember I-''

I never heard the last of that sentence. I never knew what _he_ wanted me to remember.

Peeta had a plan. Well, that's what I thought. At the interview with Caesar Flickerman, he had confessed his love for me.

It was then when I had to start pretending, that I was also madly in love with the boy with the bread. It was to save us during the games. Becoming the favourites of the Capitol. The star-crossed lovers of District 12.

Not knowing what _he_ would think back at home. Watching the interview. Hopefully _he_ knew a bluff when _he_ heard one.

''Your golden sweetheart. You're going to have sponsors lined up around the block.''

I know that this would've hurt _him_. I had to go around for the rest of today hoping that it doesn't. But deep inside of me, I know it will.

All through the games I always thought of him. The forest reminded me of our times together in the woods back home.

Winning the games and coming home was unbelievable. Coming home with the boy I was meant to be in love with was…scary. It was all for the games how I acted. And Peeta knew that, but his love wasn't for the cameras.

We still had to pretend. Pretend for the rest of our lives.

I could only see _him_ on Sundays. When we were in the woods, I had started making a suggestion that I would take over the daily snare run, when _he_ unexpectedly kissed me.

My heart clenched when his lips touched mine. It was like I was waiting for this moment forever.

Next time I had saw him _he_ didn't say I word of it. Like it never happened. It sort of hurt, how he didn't say anything about it, because it meant something to me.

We couldn't talk it anyway. Plus President Snow had a plan all figured out, our little kiss. _He_ wasn't my friend, but _he_ was going to pretend to be my cousin. I hated the thought, but it was what was keeping me and Peeta alive. It was what was making the Capitol, believe that we were in love.

It caused _him_ pain what we had to pretend and I knew that. And it caused me pain.

So when Peeta had proposed to me, I couldn't imagine what _he_ must've felt.

Every 25 years, they do a special kind of games. This was the third one. The 75th Hunger Games. The Third Quarter Quell. ''On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.''

District twelve has three victors, me, Peeta and Haymitch. I am the only girl meaning that I am going back. Going back to the games. I ran away. Ran away from what was going to happen to me. There was a possibility that this time I will be killed. The tributes will be older then me. I will be the weakest there.

But like the first games I was in, I had to make it back. For Prim, for my mom, for him.

We had to do everything that we already have done. Go on the chariots for the parade.

Train.

Show off your skills to the Gamemakers and do the interview.

Peeta and I had done something stupid, making us get the highest scores you can get both making history. Making us both bigger targets then we already were.

I am confused whether or not I love Peeta. Recently my feelings have been stirring and I don't know what to think. And I am not too sure if I love _him_, the boy that I met four years ago.

It was at the interview when Peeta had announced that we were already married. Leaving the Capitol shocked.

Then he done it again, dropped a huger bomb. Telling the Capitol that I was _pregnant_.

Especially after this me and _him_ couldn't be, even if I did make it out. We had to pretend to be cousins for the rest of our lives.

But in the end _he_ will always be mine.

_Gale_ is mine. _Anything else is unthinkable. _

_Gale_ is the one who I met four years ago.

_He_ is the one who called me Catnip. _He_ is the one who has suffered the same loss as me.

But _he_ is meant to be my cousin.

Peeta is the one who I have to be with. The one I am married to. The one that will father my unborn 'child'.

Not _Gale_. Our love is forbidden.

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><p><strong>TaaDaa!<br>****A terrible story I know, but I wanted to post something so I decided that it should be this (a piece of rubbish homework) **

**Even though I know its bad, would you still kindly review this story. Saying what you hate about it or saying were I could've improve. *cough cough* everywhere.**

**~ TheDauntlessWitch ~**


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